Mariinsky Ballet: Swan Lake, Covent Garden - review

Tuesday 26 July 2011 08:30 BST

Commanding: Uliana Lopatkina takes the dual role of Swan Queen Odette and her rival Odile in the Mariinsky’s Swan Lake at Covent Garden

Sublime is not a word you can overuse to describe the lake side scene in Swan Lake. Most ballet companies do it pretty well, but the Mariinsky elevates it to another realm, with row upon row of perfectly even, perfectly aligned dancers, each a downy-soft swan maiden, and all moving in hypnotic harmony.

It's not so much a line-up of pretty girls, as an aura for Odette, the swan who is really a princess bewitched by an evil magician and who can only be released by a promise of true love.

The Mariinsky Ballet first danced in London in 1961, the year Rudolf Nureyev defected from what was then known as the Kirov Ballet. He electrified the dance world, and the Mariinsky went on to transform attitudes to ballet. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of that visit, the company has a six-programme, three-week season beginning with its happy ending version of Swan Lake. As is always the case with the Mariinsky, we judge it more harshly that lesser troupes, and, in truth, aspects of its traditional Swan Lake look quaint, with some of the acting mannered next to the naturalistic mime we're used to in London.

But apart from this, and a slow start, the Mariinsky was gorgeous. As well as a near faultless corps of swans Uliana Lopatkina was commanding in the dual lead role of the Swan Queen Odette and her sexually adventurous rival Odile. Lopatkina is tall and slender, and moves with a pliancy that makes her limbs look almost boneless.

Daniil Korsuntsev was her dignified Prince, Alexei Nedviga his dutiful jester, and Soslan Kulaev the doddery tutor. Especially good was Andrei Yermakov who portrayed the evil magician Von Rothbart as a virile menace.

Swan Lake in rep until August 8. Mariinsky season until August 13 (020 7304 4000, roh.org.uk